Novel Captures The Anguish Of Terrorism Survivors

August 21, 2005|By CAROLE GOLDBERG, Hartford Courant

Call it a demonic convergence.

A former British journalist writes a heartbreaking work of staggering irony -- a grimly sardonic fictional account of a young woman who loses her husband and toddler son when 1,000 soccer fans are blown to bits in a terrorist bombing of an English stadium. It takes the form of a long, raging letter she writes to Osama bin Laden to explain a thing or two.

And then, on the very day his book is published, the author himself learns a thing or two about irony. Chris Cleave's book "Incendiary" came out in Britain on July 7, the same day of the all-too-real terrorist bomb attacks on the London transit system.

Confronted by this macabre marketing opportunity, London's book world foundered in confusion. Cleave's British publisher, Chatto & Windus, suspended advertising but distributed the book; some stores took down promotional displays but kept the book on their shelves. Despite such efforts to avoid capitalizing on the creepy coincidence, the press worldwide took ample note, and the author launched a Web site, www.chriscleave.com, for readers to express their reactions to the book and the situation.

Now the novel is available in the United States from Knopf, and readers can judge for themselves how incendiary it is. The story is told through a remarkable voice -- that of a working-class woman who is unschooled but surely is no fool. In a stream of consciousness devoid of commas and laced with painful humor, unimaginable hurt and dogged defiance, the never-named narrator lays into the terrorist leader:

"Dear Osama they want you dead or alive so the terror will stop. Well I wouldn't know about that I mean rock 'n' roll didn't stop when Elvis died ... it just got worse. Next thing you know there was Sonny & Cher and Dexys Midnight Runners. ... My point is it's easier to start these things than to finish them. I suppose you thought of that did you?"

She goes on:

"There's a reward of 25 million dollars on your head but don't lose sleep on my account Osama. ...

"I don't want 25 million dollars Osama I just want you to give it a rest. AM I ALONE? I want to be the last mother in the world who ever has to write you a letter like this. Who ever has to write you Osama about her dead boy."

So begins a tale that combines elements of a political thriller with a very British obsession with matters of class -- and a bit of grotty sex for good measure. *